EARLY MAN 



THE physical boundaries of the county of Lancashire, which separate 

 it for the most part from its neighbours, impart to its story an 

 individuality that would not have been possible in a piece of land 

 arbitrarily divided as by a county boundary only. In the extreme 

 north-west, however, there lies a detached portion known generally as 

 Lancashire over Sands, which cannot well be separated physically from the 

 counties of Cumberland and Westmorland : the antiquities of this district, 

 therefore, although described in the present articles, do not enter into the 

 general consideration of early culture-development in the county. 



So far as evidence shows, it was to the moorlands of the Yorkshire 

 border, though bleak and inhospitable, that man was first tempted to come 

 and settle. The undrained lowlands around the coast were for the most part 

 marshy and uninhabitable, while the uplands and valleys lying between were still 

 largely covered with primaeval forest. There can be no certainty, however, 

 in the matter. The disposition of early man is indicated for the most part by 

 sporadic finds in recent times of a small number only of the objects and 

 implements he used; hence, while the suggestion remains of some places in 

 which man lived, the lack of finds in other places does not exclude the 

 possibility of habitation there. 



Of the people themselves scant traces have been found. The human 

 skulls found in making deep excavations at Preston for the Ribble Docks 

 constitute the most reliable evidence. They were found associated with bones 

 of the urus, which was already extinct at the dawn of this era, and with 

 remains of earlier ages. The an thropometrical analysis of these (p. 256) shows 

 them to belong probably to a population of mixed race — the original stock of 

 neolithic times upon whom had come the Celtic element usually associated 

 with the rise of the Bronze Age in art; but the numbers of examples are too 

 few to warrant any general conclusion. Other than these, the perishable 

 bones from a few burials in isolated spots and the charred remains of those 

 who were cremated are all that remain of man himself. Some of his burial 

 places, however, are known. The long barrows characteristic of stone-using 

 man, indeed, are few and uncertain; but possibly some mounds on the moors 

 above Rochdale, particularly those which lie towards Extwistle near to Burnley 

 and some few at Wavertree near Liverpool, as will be shown later, may be 

 assigned to this period. The round barrows and burial mounds of the early 

 metal age, however, are more numerous and more readily identified. The 

 neighbourhood particularly of Winwick, near to Warrington, has yielded the 

 best examples. The moors around Rochdale and Bolton in the south, and 

 Bleasdale and Lancaster in the north of the county, are sites of a fair 



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